Studies of medicine and religion

This page in brief

Medical researchers are showing an increasing interest in how religious faith affects our mental and physical health, and general wellbeing. Here is a summary of well-established conclusions plus some more recent studies (many are taken from the Science on Religion blog).

Some definitions

People’s religiosity can be described as intrinsic or extrinsic. Extrinsically religious people participate in religion for ancillary benefits such as social connections, while the intrinsically religious consider religion to be something personal, pursued for its own sake. People who score high on both extrinsic and intrinsic religion are considered indiscriminately pro-religious.

Some studies probed the difference between being religious (following the teachings of a particular religion) and being spiritual (a sense of there being more to life than the material). Of course, some people are both.

Holistic health (physical + mental)

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A review of 600 published papers concluded: “A large volume of research shows that people who are more R/S have better mental health and adapt more quickly to health problems compared to those who are less R/S.” (R/S = religious or spiritual). These mental health problems “have physiological consequences that impact physical health, affect the risk of disease, and influence response to treatment.” The paper points out “the need to integrate spirituality into patient care.”

“Although the effects sizes are moderate, there typically are links between religious practices and reduced onset of physical and mental illnesses, reduced mortality and likelihood of recovery from or adjustment to physical or mental illness.”

Physical health

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Church attenders tend to be healthier compared to non-attenders – they are almost half as likely to suffer from arteriosclerotic heart disease, a quarter as likely to die from cirrhosis of the liver, they have lower blood pressure and they recover more quickly from surgery.

Religious beliefs can have a dramatic effect on HIV/AIDS patients. Those who believed God is loving and forgiving had significantly slower disease progression over 4 years than did those who viewed God as harsh and punishing (for them the disease progressed 5 to 8 times faster based on the two measures used).

Prayer reduced the pain felt by patients suffering from chronic back pain, and also improved their ability to cope with the pain, but only if the patients had a previous religious commitment or identified with a religious group.

People who feel connected to a higher power (God) and who find comfort in faith or spiritual beliefs had better cardiovascular health, as measured by a range of indicators, including blood pressure and cholesterol. They were also less likely to experience stress or depression. The connection between spirituality and these factors remained even when the effects of other factors was removed.

People suffering advanced heart disease and who experience negative feelings about God, their spiritual life, or the religious tradition they belong to (even if they are highly religious), and thus have difficulties reconciling themselves to their beliefs or to God, spend more time in hospital than do those who are at peace with their religion.

Mental health

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Intrinsically religious people tend to have positive mental health and well-being, and hence improved cardiac health. However the ‘pro-religious’ tend to have low levels of physical and psychological health.

A study of mostly religious African-American women suffering from cancer found that religious belief didn’t seem to have any benefits for their physical health, but religious activities such as attending church and prayimng did improve emotional wellbeing.

Religious people were less traumatised by the Twin Towers terrorist attacks and had better emotional health over the following 3 years. Spiritual people were initially more traumatised than average, but recovered very quickly.

It is almost a given that religious people have better mental health, but this study found that this was primarily because of personality type – as measured by the variables Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The study found that Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were related to Religiosity, while Openness was related to Spirituality. Thus it is argued, people with the given personality traits are likely to be both religious/spritual and have good mental health.

“hundreds of medical, neurological, psychological and sociological studies on religion [show] …. even minimal religious participation is correlated with enhancing longevity and personal health….Activities involving meditation and intensive prayer permanently strengthen neural functioning in specific parts of the brain that are involved with lowering anxiety and depression, enhancing social awareness and empathy, and improving cognitive and intellectual functioning.”

“Spiritual well-being was, unsurprisingly, associated with less anxiety, depression, or distress …. the emotional aspects of religion and spirituality were more strongly associated with positive mental health than behavioral or cognitive aspects of religion and spirituality.”

Worry & stress

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Those who believe in a benevolent God tend to worry less and be more tolerant of life’s uncertainties than those who believe in an indifferent or punishing God. The lead author, David H. Rosmarin, recommends that psychiatrists take more account of patients’ religious beliefs.

When believers think about God they feel less distressed; for example, they take setbacks in stride and react with less distress to anxiety-provoking mistakes. “Thinking about religion makes you calm under fire.” says researcher Michael Inzlicht, “there is some evidence that religious people live longer and they tend to be happier and healthier.”.

An Australian study of young adults found that alternative spiritualities tended to lead to lower levels of mental health and higher levels of depression, anxiety and anti-social behaviour than those who believe in God.

Those who don’t attend church are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide than church attendees – in fact church attendance is the biggest single predictor of suicide, more important even than unemployment.

Cancer patients who were both spiritual and religious had the highest levels of wellbeing and suffered the least depression. Those who were spiritual but not religious also had good wellbeing. Those who were neither religious nor spiritual were more likely to be depressed, and the religious but not spiritual fared worst of all.

Enthusiastic religious believers deal with anxiety better than non-believers. They show less anxiety after failing at a task, and as a result perform better at the next task. This occurs because failure causes people to feel their sense of purpose and meaning has been threatened, but religious belief acts as a buffer to this feeling.

Religious and spiritual people had a higher incidence of depression, with those whose spirituality wasn’t connected to a religion being most prone. The study recognised this was contrary to the findings of previous studies.

Being Religious or Spiritual Is Linked With Getting More Depressed. Huffington Post.

Prosociality vs destructive and anti-social behaviour

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In the US, actively religious people are much less likely than irrelegious people to become delinquent, to abuse drugs and alcohol.

Many studies, reported in Handbook of Crime Correlates show that religious people are less likely to commit crimes.
Many other studies show that crime is less in religious communities and that participation in religious activities was a persistent and noncontingent inhibiter of adult crime.

However a smaller number of studies show the opposite, that crime is higher among religious people, or in more religious communities. Some criminals excuse their crimes because of a belief in God’s forgiveness.

“When we took a closer look, we found that patients with stronger spiritual well-being, more benign images of God (such as perceptions of a benevolent rather than an angry or distant God), or stronger beliefs (such as convictions that a personal God can be called upon for assistance) reported better social health,”

In 2010, Leslie Francis, Professor of Religions and Education at Warwick University, reported on the results of 8 recent studies (1996 to 2004). His conclusion: The empirical evidence demonstrates that overall religious people are happier. However he says no clear causal connection was established in these studies.

“Religion and happiness: Perspectives from the psychology of religion, positive psychology and empirical theology”, in The Practices of Happiness.

People who pray for their partners tend to be more cooperative and forgiving towards their partners, especially in hurtful situations, than those who don’t pray, including those who think positive thoughts towards them or who think about God, but don’t pray.

Conclusions

Clearly the research evidence is very diverse, and some studies give results that appear to conflict with others. But the following broad conclusions can be drawn:

1. People with intrinsic religious belief, or who are both religious and spiritual, tend to have better physical and emotional health than those whose belief is more extrinsic, or those with no belief.

2. Sometimes the immediate cause seems to be other factors which are part of having deeply held beliefs (e.g. a sense of purpose or the support of a caring community), but other times it seems to be the belief itself.

3. People who pray, or are prayed for, generally have better health and wellbeing than others – praying regularly is better than praying just when a particular need arises.

4. These results can perhaps be explained in purely natural terms, but they may lend support to those who believe that this is what one would expect if God exists and cares for us.

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[There is a] a growing awareness among scientists and physicians that the relationship between spiritual life and practices and well-being is real, has impacts on people’s lives, and demands to be better understood. Connor Wood